How effective is .223 against cars?

Check out some of the special purpose .06 (and 5.56 ammo) at 'ammo to go', out of Texas. http://ammunitiontogo.com/catalog1/index.php

I can't speak to the legalities of using armor piercing or incendiary ammo in self defense aganst a vehicle, but even laying tracer down on the target might have a rather disorienting effect that allows you a bit of a leg up.

Now, the ss109 green tip you have for the 5.56 is good, but some special purpose rounds for the M-1 might be money well spent.

This is the only source I am aware of that has real APIT silver tip for the M-1---it isn't cheap and is rare as hens teeth. However, if it is legal where you live, you might consider a buying a few.

CYANIDEGENOCIDE - Got the bullets from gun broker. Not machine pulled either, those have nasty markings on them. The ones I got looked like there where brand new. Where 170 gr and loaded perfect into 308 casings.

"...stopping a small pickup truck heading your way at high speed..." No rifle bullet will stop any vehicle. The Laws of Physics doesn't allow it.
"...APIT..." That'd be APTI(Armour Piercing Tracer Incendiary) and illegal. Incendiary ammo is not legal. Won't matter against a moving vehicle anyway. Even after the fire starts.
If you want to deal with a criminal in a moving vehicle with a 5.56, use SS109 ammo. It won't ever stop the vehicle, but it will penetrate the body.

"...stopping a small pickup truck heading your way at high speed..." No rifle bullet will stop any vehicle. The Laws of Physics doesn't allow it.
"...APIT..." That'd be APTI(Armour Piercing Tracer Incendiary) and illegal. Incendiary ammo is not legal. Won't matter against a moving vehicle anyway. Even after the fire starts.
If you want to deal with a criminal in a moving vehicle with a 5.56, use SS109 ammo. It won't ever stop the vehicle, but it will penetrate the body.

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He's in New Mexico, not Canuckistan. Different laws here

There is no way he would deputize anyone who is not his buddy and especially an Anglo outsider, aka "Gringo."

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Just to be fair, I don't think you can walk into any police station anywhere
in the country from Chicago to rural VT and ask to be deputized.

However I do have a steel farm wagon that is 14 feet long and almost six tall with the steel side plates up. I could also load it with straw bales and that would make a great barrier without cluttering up the area. The shooters would have to move further up or down the road t shoot from their car or discmount and fire from around the wagon. I suspect they will not do the later.

My house is 2 X 6 framing unforunately, a berm between me and the road would be a good idea.

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OK, this is going in the right direction as far as making yourself a harder
target. However, I would not recommend something so tall along the road
that it obstructs your view (hence my suggestion for junked cars). Also,
hay/straw bales (even a lot of them stacked deep) are not good bullet
stoppers. You would be depending almost completely on what the steel side
plates could deflect --which would not be much given the kind of steel in
the first place. The hay bales might actually make better road obstacles
should some of them accidentally fall off your wagon up and down the
street in your neighborbood...yeah, kind of funny how four fell right there
together and stacked themselves up...

Any ballistic protection such as the hesco barriers should be placed as close
to your house as possible. The barriers are easy enough to make, but I
don't know about the dirt in your area to fill them. Small stones/gravel work
well enough (or better) as long as there's no major gaps between the barrier
blocks (or within them). Some areas in the Middle East will use heavy fence
to just make tubes/squares for stacked stones. In KY and TN people stack
flat stones found commonly throughout Appalachia.

I know none of these suggestions are very pretty landscaping for your yard,
but they are cheap and expedient. If you have time and money you can do
a concrete wall and make a courtyard encompassing the front and a side or
two of your home. You would want to do at least the two sides facing your
street and corner, but three would be better.

This can be done to look like a better homes and gardens courtyard and not a
doomer compound. However, you may not care about how it looks at this
point.

The APIT would be illegal for me to order here in IL. That isn't the case everywhere.

'Common' mil-spec tracer ammo for the M-1 burns hot enough that it was regarded by the military as having the dual utility of functioning as incendiary ammo also in a pinch.

I'm no lawyer, but I figure also that I'd have an easier time explaining to a jury the 'why' of tracer ammo, too.

Also, m2AP for the M-1 has been ruled as being of particular use for 'sporting' applications--as has the ss109 green tip for the 5.56--by the ATF. In other words, there should be nothing unusual about either of those loadings in a self-defense sitaution.

Good luck--it sounds like a bad nightmare.

I lived inside of these things for about a year:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesco_bastion

The first pic gives a great view of their size. They can be assembled side by
side and when filled they press hard enough to "seal" any gaps between them.
They can even be stacked on top of each other, but I would not advise this
where it rains (dirt load will shift) or if a vehicle were to run into it. One block
thick on the ground works pretty well for most threats. They will stop bullets
and a head on collision by civilian vehicles.

Blacksmoke, you bring up some other issues which are far out of scope (no
pun intended) for THR. Therefore, I will leave that issue with only one question:
Which state in this country has the easiest to access fresh water resources,
yet the highest unemployment?

In your case, you find yourself in a very Old West kind of situation that has
been around for a long time and due to many factors (base root being limited
resources at all levels), you find yourself in a state of official neglect which
has given comfort to the scumbags in your environment.

The foresight and wisdom of the Founders and the 2nd Amendment is shown
over and over in these many local situations!

Therefore, I will leave that issue with only one question:
Which state in this country has the easiest to access fresh water resources, yet the highest unemployment?

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Yeah, I live in that state. And I don't like the implications of what you're saying, but I won't say you're wrong either.

I've had to try and stop a good number of vehicles with a 5.56 SAW and it's miserable with regular FMJ (side-glass is, of course, easier to penetrate than windshield glass - my guess is because the glass is both thinner and the angle less acute). I had to put more rounds on-target than I otherwise would have liked just to punch through the windshield to hit the drivers.

I didn't have the opportunity to replace that ammo with AP, unfortunately, so I switched up to a 7.62x54R PKM - which is obviously outside the scope of this discussion.

All that said and not knowing your environment, I would caution you to bear in mind where any missed bullets are going to end up.

Blacksmoke, have you considered the Benelli M1 with reduced recoil buckshot loads?

Hornady makes a great load that patterns well out of most shotguns. You lose pellets; but you gain a great deal of control over the 3.5" shells you are using now and fairly easy follow up with the M1.

I'm far from knowledgable on shotguns; but we passed around a Benelli M1 loaded with Hornady TAP Reduced Recoil rounds during a carbine course and not only was it printing impressive patterns at 35yds - it was also delivering the entire magazine in very short order with good control. I think my splits were around 0.35-0.4 sec with a brand new weapon I had never used before (vs. 0.2 with my pistol and AR).

If my defensive measures failed and I was left with the choice of using a
.223 or buckshot, I would go with the buckshot against thin-skinned civie
vehicles. It tends to really get some attention when used on the windows of
moving targets, too. However, I don't know how far you are from the road.
The shotgun has a great psychological effect on the intended target(s) as
well.

I've used Mossberg pumps (500/590) for hunting and on deployment. There
were turret gunners who used these as their back-up weapons. Use good
copper-plated buckshot and not the cheap S&B lead balls --it makes a dif
on penetration (animate or inanimate). Benelli makes great shotguns, just expensive.

If I had more choices and distance was more than 30 yds, I would use
7.62 nato/russian/x39. These take more training/time on the range than
the pump shotguns.

12GA with nosler partition slugs. Once they realize that you are putting quarter sized holes in the cab, they may rethink their plan of action. -06 to follow. Shoot from the highest vantage point you can without standing (second floor windows are great, many people don't look up when panicked). Once you hear the enbloc fly, grab the .223, and a 30 rd mag. Aim com, and learn the difference between grazing fire, cover fire, and a sustained rate of fire. You are looking to kill, not injure.

At the FNH 3 gun in Missouri we had some targets half hidden behind cars, and it was OK just to shoot right through the car. It worked with the .223, except for the engine block. And these were older American cars with lots of steel.

The comments about stopping a car is a different thing. You can stop a car by killing the driver or punching out something vital. To cause a car to stop by punching out something vital you might want something a little bigger.

I wonder if I should construct an explosive device that can be hurled?

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I think that would cross a legal line. Not to mention can you imagine the jury? "so I went to my barn and got my homemade grenade and that is how I blew up the car full of gangsters". Much better going with a pump shotty with slugs and/or buck+pistol for backup.

Or just use your garand.

First off, I pray that you and your family can be safe. This is a pretty scary situation!

I saw one poster mention a Barrett 82. While it is huge and hugely expensive, it's probably the ultimate stopper gun against a person in a vehicle.

Any high-power rifle will do IMHO in this case. Your .223 will penetrate car doors (and obviously car glass) which should be enough to engage the bad guy. Don't try to stop the car, not even the aforementioned Barrett will do that. Go for the driver and the shooter.

Of the guns you have now, I'd use your Garand. Keep the 12-gauge and .223 in case they get out of the car.

Also, I have never lived out in the country so I cannot really comment on the validity of the cops' response to your requests, but at first glance that strikes me as a shockingly negligent response on their part. They are abandoning their primary duty - to protect the citizens from violence. Disgusting.

I need some clarification here: Your saying that these guys actually fired upon the house and recieved fire in kind and the police still would not come and investigate? Surely there would have been ample evidence of some sort like brass, tire marks, holes in the guys wall, right? If all that evidence exists and the police refuse to investigate, I think you have some pretty big problems.

get AP incendiary

Get some armor piercing incendiary rounds from ammotogo.com, and it's even on garand clips..
That will(with proper shot placement, gas tank) will blow up the car/truck


** never mind you have attack geese you are covered.
Mine get real nasty around mating time and have killed dogs.









Marsh

Garand, no doubt. If you have any sort of distance on the shooters, you will have the advantage since they will most likely be shooting pistols or mac-11 style sub guns, both of which are not very accurate off a bench, let alone out the window of a moving car. The 30-06 round will go clean through any part of the car you shoot at (including passengers) except maybe the engine block. 8 rounds is more than enough to mess up the occupants of any vehicle, and the Garand is a cinch to reload.

I do not think you should do anything to disable to car; if you are in a remote area those baddies will have no where to go but your property to find another means of escape, and 3-4 men outside of a car are a whole lot more dangerous than crammed inside one, so the odds are definitely not in your favor if they dismount.

I just remembered four pounds of FFFg powder in the barn. I wonder if I should construct an explosive device that can be hurled?

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NO this is a really bad idea it might get the job done but you would be a felon OR it goes off before you want/expect it to and boom your dead both are two unacceptable conciquences!

Stay away from the .223 get the M1 and concentrate on hitting what you are aiming at.

Those not familiar with mean geese may not believe it, but they are a useful part of your defense. I would also consider mules or llamas, as long as they bad guys won't just kill them first realizing they are a problem. It sounds like a really stupid bunch, so I assume they wouldn't.

You could also do ostrich farming... but I digress.

In all seriousness, when we hear odd sounds around our place, one of the first things we do is look at our horse in its pasture to see if she's looking at anything. 99% of the time she isn't and that's reassuring. If she is we investigate. If she would be running around (hasn't happened), we would be investigating with rifles in hand.

I would avoid creating any sort of bomb for all the very obvious reasons stated.